Meet Isabel: Early childhood education M.A.

Hello my name is Isabelle Blair, I am the owner, director, and teacher of Mi Casa Su Casa Bilingual Family Childcare. I am also a master's student majoring in Early Childhood Education here at Western.

When I became a mother, I knew I wanted to be the best mother I could. I took a keen interest in the development of children and in wanting to open my own daycare, I knew that this degree was the right choice for me. In regards to my Master’s degree, I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship from the Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children. Along with this was an amazing opportunity that I could not turn down, education is always changing and it is important for educators to grow just like our children.

The program has been good to me. I have a lot of resources that make the program better for me along with the professors. Dr. Andrea Smith has been an amazing professor in the ways of supporting me and helping me towards success in my degree. Even when I have doubted myself, she has been there to encourage me and give me confidence to keep going. Along with that, the program has been very flexible which was very important to me. They are always looking for new ways to support their students and it makes such a difference in their students.

I wanted my childcare to be bilingual because I am fortunate enough to know two languages. With this skill, I wanted to support other families who grow up in a multilingual environment and allowing children to have exposure to other languages would be very beneficial. We separate the children into groups to allow for more hands-on learning experiences. We have the children engage in activities like: circle time, song time, arts and crafts, kitchen area, reading, and jungle gym activities for our more active kids.

The schedules for the kids are focused a lot on their needs, so if they need outside time, they will be in that group. If they want to stay inside, we divide them into asking if they want to read, draw, etc. allowing for more personal autonomy for our kids allowing us to be more flexible to cater to the needs of the kids. The kids are very good during the transitioning time from activities, but that is because we allow them to have sufficient time to do so.

Being able to learn the in depth pedagogies, ideologies, and research about child development is a lot different than taking a two-hour training. Being able to go deeper than the surface has been beneficial to have more understanding on where folks come from, why children’s environments are important, and what types of environments are needed to stimulate the proper development. This program is also not just about that, it is also about child advocacy and seeing what I can do for the community and the families residing in it.